Live broadcast on August 5th, Chelsea coach Pochetino keenly realized that Chelsea needed a culture of “win now. Although he missed the European war in the new season, his expectations for the team’s new season did not weaken.
After the 1-1 draw with Dortmund, Pochetino said: “We will try our best to win the Premier League championship. Chelsea must strive to win the championship. I will tell you at the end of the season whether this is possible. We need to win now. I am a coach, just like a forward. If they score, it’s good. If they don’t score, it will be a problem. It’s the same for the coach. We need to win. If we can’t win, we will struggle.”
“We will face Liverpool next week and our mentality is to win. My thoughts and messages to players, fans and everyone are that we are Chelsea and we need to win. What matters is today, yesterday, not tomorrow. At the same time, we need to work hard and prepare intelligently for next month, the next six months and a year.”
Previously coached Paris: “We got very positive things from this experience, knowing that when you come to a club like Paris Saint Germain, you may win the Champions League. If you can’t win the Champions League, you need to move on. I hope this situation will change, because I think Paris should be more stable and have time to build something. When we lost to Real Madrid one year after coaching, the club began to consider changing everything. I explained that Manchester City or Liverpool lost the semi-finals or finals, but they would continue to move forward, which made it possible for the coaching staff to work hard for the next preseason.”
“If you do nothing but bring in some players, you can’t win. Liverpool won the Champions League after years of hard work and stability. After seven years of coaching in Guadiola, Manchester City is the same as Real Madrid. It is very important to understand this. Maybe sometimes you can win, which is an exception, but in general, clubs that want to win will be more stable, work hard, make plans and strive for victory.”
Before Pochetino accepted Chelsea’s job, he spent a lot of energy to fully understand Chelsea’s vision. It was basically a two-way communication. In the first conference call with Stuart and Winstanley, co-sports directors, Pochetino even asked who was interviewing who half jokingly. Since Burley took over Chelsea at the end of last May, Chelsea has experienced 12 months of drama and chaos. Pochetino watched Chelsea’s new plan from a distance and experienced some major initial problems.
“We changed a lot after leaving Tottenham Hotspur. The coaching staff and I are now older. When you are 50 years old, you need to be careful, because your changes are very fast! We are more mature, and we have learned a lot under different circumstances. We always evaluate ourselves and want to make progress. This experience gives us the possibility of progress. In football, we are always moving forward, observing and trying to develop different ideas. However, in terms of management, the possibility of managing in different countries provides the possibility of having more tools when you create the platform and the way of managing personnel in Britain. Now we are better.”
Since Abramovich took over the Blues in June 2003, this is a club with a continuous champion mentality. The Russian billionaire was famous for his ruthlessness towards the head coach, but he won 21 trophies, thus proving that his approach was reasonable. In sharp contrast, at Tottenham Hotspur, the outgoing Conte once claimed that his players almost succumbed to mediocrity: “They are used to it here, they are used to it, they don’t fight for important things. They don’t want to compete under pressure. It’s easy to do so.”
Pochetino: “I won’t comment on Conte’s comments. For me, when I was at Tottenham Hotspur, it was a different period, but I think the mentality of winning was there. Maybe we didn’t lift the trophy, but we won in many ways. But now Chelsea is a different club, in a different period, with different processes and different plans.”
Chelsea are indeed very different, because bosses are trying to destroy and innovate at an ultra-high speed on the road to success. But the problem last season was that constant changes would only bring more instability. So Pochetino is now seeking stability, maybe slowing down a little bit and finally reducing the pressure on his players. When you participate in this sport, the pressure is always there. When I was in Spain, we were under great pressure because we were fighting for relegation, and so was Southampton. Tottenham Hotspur has different pressures. Yes, Paris Saint Germain, now Chelsea, you always feel a lot of pressure.”
“We won the preseason, okay, then? We keep moving forward because we need to win the next game. If we lose the preseason, it will be a huge pressure. They would say, “Oh, Chelsea didn’t win”. We were undefeated in five pre-season matches, which was very good. But when you lose a game, the good feeling disappears. This is our job. It is to maintain stability and provide balance. Sometimes the team will rise and fall, which is very important for us to act in the same way.”
“Maybe I sleep better now. I was very difficult when I was in Spain before. It’s all or nothing. You will think, ‘if we can’t win tomorrow or tonight, my career will be a disaster.’ Now you can better control the pressure. You can always feel the stimulation of adrenaline, but when you are isolated from the outside world, you will say, ‘now I need to rest, I need to sleep’.”
“I think this experience helped me get better sleep and enjoy time with my family and friends. It’s easier to enjoy time with players and coaching staff. It was more like bam before! bam! bam! We learn through experience and have passion, adrenaline and discipline, but it is important to know when to enter this process and when to have time to enjoy ourselves, when to free the players from all the pressure. As a coaching staff, our actions will be passed to the players.”
(eagle)
